Vespero - Rito

A landmark album after which the young band moved from spacy, ethereal material with lengthy instrumental passages to relatively concise, theatrical and avant-garde poetry dominated pieces. Rito spends most of its time with sonic textures and elongated compositions based on the repetitive and sometimes dark pulses that characterize their earlier work. But it also retains a gentle, fairy-tale ambience colored with beautiful vocalizations by Natalya Tjurina and Arkady Fedotov, as well as elegant violin passages by Valentin Rulev and flute by Fedotov himself. Their sound held together by Ivan Fedotov’s assertive drumming, Arkady Fedotov’s powerful bass and synthesizer work, and Alexander Kuzovlev guitar and sound effects – keep the proceedings moving no matter how spaced out the music gets. “Triptych”, “Inna’s Burst In Tears”, “Crabs Ashore”, and “Silence Breath Echo” – which one may know from the band’s earlier recordings – are all superior here, done clearly and louder, with a real edge to the playing (in many respects, thanks to excellent sound-production by Alisa Coral of SPACE MIRRORS). The album shows off a very potent group, able to create subtly textured music which evolves from art rock to space and kraut rock before turning up to neo psychodelia.

"Beautiful and very atmospheric album by this russian band. Mostly instrumental but with female vocals in some tracks. A one hour psychedelic (music-) trip! Sounds sometimes a bit like Gong, Zone Six (debut-CD), Tarentel... some orchestral string-passages, lots of reverb, interlinked tracks... Great trippy album and great artwork as well!" – by Dave Schmidt aka Sula Bassana of SULATRON (Austria) (July 2007).

"Although I am not familiar with Vespero’s past, I can imagine that Rito must be the highlight of their career. The short Inverno leads to the ten minute long Triptych: To The Falling Sun, where we get a first taste of the Russians’ inspiration. A hypnotic rhythmic backbone provided by the Fedotov brothers leaves much improvisational ground for guitarist Alexander Kuzovlev who sounds like a young Steve Hillage, and the added trippy electronics make the parallels to Gong even more apparent. Whenever Vespero opt for more ambient moods, they come close to mid-Seventies Tangerine Dream, although Vespero seem to have a much more sombre outlook. Inna’s Burst In Tears takes its charm from Natalya Tjurina’s melancholic vocals, and Valentin Rulev’s violin spices things up sometimes with fusion jazz overtones, a bit like Jean-Luc Ponty’s Mahavishnu Orchestra period. Rito bridges the gap between improvised music and composed art rock, with Vespero taking ingredients from genres such as space, psychedelic and progressive rock, turning it all into a cocktail that everyone should enjoy who is into anything between the aforementioned bands. At times, Vespero are meandering maybe a bit, losing focus, but they always find their way back into the song, and Ms Coral’s impeccable mastering job transforms this CD into real ear candy. (Grade 8/10)" – by Pascal Thiel of DISAGREEMENT (Luxemburg) (September 2007).